437 Death poems

And the dead man was sick with sorrow and his flesh wasted away and his pale lips ate back from his mouth and his teeth were bared in a base grin. And the man tore from his face the grin and there underneath it rose a chortling.

Shmerl sells to Berl, and Berl buys from Getzl. And inside of them all like a hole inside the bagel is death, also known as Detzl. And the dead man lay in the cart pale with shame and helplessness, and diapered like an infant in his diapers without trousers and without underpants. And his lips taut in a twist of disgrace: I can no longer satisfy a woman.

And one more desire the dead man had left to be taken to his father’s bosom and hide his crumbling face and weep with his arms round the neck of his progenitor that’s rotting. And the laughing gold skull of his father refrained: I too had a father and I too yearned.

And the man said, what has the dead man left if not to be philosophical, I’ve plenty of time here at my disposal to solve the deep meaning of it all. The man peeked in himself and knew in this life there is no riddle.

There is another world, but it is in this one. Paul Eluard First there were those who died before I was born. It was as if they had just left and their shadows would slip out after them under the door so recently closed the air in its path was still swirling to rest. Some of the furniture came from them, I was told, and one day I opened two chests of drawers to learn what the dead kept. But it was when I learned to read that I began always to live among the dead. I remember Rapunzel, the improved animals in the Just-So Stories, and a flock of birds that saved themselves from a hunter by flying in place in the shape of a tree, their wings imitating the whisk of wind in the leaves. My sons and I are like some wine the dead have already bottled. They wish us well, but there is nothing they can do for us. Sebastian cries in his sleep, I bring him into my bed, talk to him, rub his back. To help his sons live easily among the dead is a father’s great work. Now Sebastian drifts, soon he’ll sleep. We can almost hear the dead breathing. They sound like water under a ship at sea. To love the dead is easy. They are final, perfect. But to love a child is sometimes to fail at love while the dead look on with their abstract sorrow. To love a child is to turn away from the patient dead. It is to sleep carefully in case he cries. Later, when my sons are grown among their own dead, I can dive easily into sleep and loll among the coral of my dreams growing on themselves until at the end I almost never dream of anyone, except my sons, who is still alive.

Before long the end Of the beginning Begins to bend To the beginning Of the end you live With some misgivings About what you did.

In the cold I will rise, I will bathe In waters of ice; myself Will shiver, and shrive myself, Alone in the dawn, and anoint Forehead and feet and hands; I will shutter the windows from light, I will place in their sockets the four Tall candles and set them a-flame In the grey of the dawn; and myself Will lay myself straight in my bed, And draw the sheet under my chin.

Winter throws his great white shield on the ground, breaking thin arms of twisting branches, and then howls on the north side of the Black Mesa a deep, throaty laughter. Because of him we have to sell our cattle that rake snow for stubble. Having lived his whole life in a few weeks, slow and pensive he walks away, dragging his silver-stream shield down branches and over the ground, he keeps walking slowly away into death bravely.

It’s good you came—she says. You heard a plane crashed on Thursday? Well so they came to see me about it. The story is he was on the passenger list. So what, he might have changed his mind. They gave me some pills so I wouldn’t fall apart. Then they showed me I don’t know who. All black, burned except one hand. A scrap of shirt, a watch, a wedding ring. I got furious, that can’t be him. He wouldn’t do that to me, look like that. The stores are bursting with those shirts. The watch is just a regular old watch. And our names on that ring, they’re only the most ordinary names. It’s good you came. Sit here beside me. He really was supposed to get back Thursday. But we’ve got so many Thursdays left this year. I’ll put the kettle on for tea. I’ll wash my hair, then what, try to wake up from all this. It’s good you came, since it was cold there, and him just in some rubber sleeping bag, him, I mean, you know, that unlucky man. I’ll put the Thursday on, wash the tea, since our names are completely ordinary—

How many times these low feet staggered - Only the soldered mouth can tell - Try - can you stir the awful rivet - Try - can you lift the hasps of steel! Stroke the cool forehead - hot so often - Lift - if you care - the listless hair - Handle the adamantine fingers Never a thimble - more - shall wear - Buzz the dull flies - on the chamber window - Brave - shines the sun through the freckled pane - Fearless - the cobweb swings from the ceiling - Indolent Housewife - in Daisies - lain!